Bible Connection Podcast: Jesus Over Everything with Lisa Whittle
With 8 bestselling books and a new Bible study, Lisa Whittle has dedicated her life to chasing after Jesus. She joined the Bible Connection Podcast to talk about lessons she learned and wrote about in her book, Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First (Thomas Nelson, 2020). She talks about the importance of service and how serving as God wants us to changes us. She also talks about the importance of pursuing holiness and trusting in God to empower us in all that he asks us to do.

      
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Lisa Whittle

In this episode of the Bible Connection Podcast, Lisa Whittle talks about her realization, gleaned from her study of the Bible, that Jesus is to be placed over everything in her life and how hard it is to realize that goal. Even though it can feel like a heady to-do list, Lisa explains how placing Jesus over everything is actually a way to uncomplicate your life and operate the way the Bible says you should.

She talks about lies that we often believe about service. That we often get off track by thinking whatever has the biggest spotlight is doing the best. We look at service the way man judges it instead of how God does it. Often, we think of service incorrectly. Lisa talks about how to have a proper perspective on service and how that can change your heart. Then, she talks about how service can often be painful and something she must pray for and work for.

Lisa talks about the importance of choosing holiness over freedom and how that relinquishment leads to an abundant life that God has promised. Pursuing legalism isn’t Biblical, but choosing holiness isn’t legalism, as Lisa explains in the episode. She explains how so often we are enslaved by our own free choices and choosing holiness is so much less complicated.

People constantly chase substitute saviors and things to distract us that ultimately don’t bring us true joy and happiness. At the end of the day, we’re back to complicated lives and stress. Lisa shows us that following Christ and putting Jesus over everything is truly a way to bring joy and an uncomplicated life. Lisa encourages us that God will empower us to do what He asks us to do. It will be difficult, but it is possible.

Excerpts from This Podcast

2:02 — “Things for me die hard. My self, the death to my own desires and wants, and just doing what I want to do.”

2:33 — “I know the Bible’s true, I believe the Bible, I believe the Creator of this system of order set things up and the way He set it up is that He would be in first place and everything else would fall from the priority order.”

3:53 — “God is so amazing that not only would He create us, but then He would care for us by saying no the reason why I want you to put Me over everything is because I want your life to work well so that you can not only have a thriving life – not perfect, not problem-free according to John 16:33 – but less complicated than it’s become.”

8:28 — “The point is: where’s your heart? What are you doing? And what are you doing it for? It’s a private matter between you and the Lord that you have to work out.”

10:33 — “When we serve, it innately changes who we are as people.

12:26 — “Service has changed me, going against the grain of who I am, of myself, of my flesh. It’s changed me more than almost anything else.”

16:28 — “We have a lot of believers who are enslaved by our own choices and it is not the free, thriving life that God has created us to have. Instead, the choice for holiness, which really is emulating the entire character of Christ, who He is, and all of that, it produces the kind of freedom that allows us to truly thrive in this life.”

20:15 — “For me, I don’t like people bossing me around. I’m very independent. I don’t necessarily love rules. So this speaks to my own rebellious heart. But I don’t feel in any way hindered by following Jesus and by being under the protection of holiness. I feel more free than I ever have in my entire life.”

23:10 — “Do you want your life to be ultimately uncomplicated in the day-to-day? Do you want to keep running to the substitute saviors who won’t help you in the end? Or do you want a better solution than that?”

25:50 — “God knowns. He knows in ways that we don’t know. He is working things on our behalf that we cannot possibly see or know.”

Featured Scripture

John 16:33
“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you [a]will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

Colossians 1:17-18
“And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.”

Psalm 142:5
“I cried out to You, O Lord:
I said, “You are my refuge,
My portion in the land of the living.”

Episode Links

Lisa’s Twitter
Lisa’s Instagram
Lisa’s Facebook
Lisa Whittle’s Website
Lisa’s books, including Jesus Over Everything
Video: Jesus Over Everything Study

      
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